Starting college this year has been a very different experience from high school, with so many elements to recognize and comprehend. My impression of college while still in high school was that college would be much harder academically, but also have more opportunities and classes that fit my interests. Although both of these thoughts turned out to be true, now having experienced almost of semester of college, they were also both huge understatements. Academically, high school is nothing compared to college. In my high school, the low scores on tests were in the eighties, and the exams were worth maybe 10% of the grade all together. Here, I’m in freshman level classes with mean scores in the seventies, and sometime the sixties, and exams usually count for around 40% of the grade or more in a class! Content-wise, the courses are much more complicated, having built upon what we’ve learned in high school but also teaching the class in a single semester versus an entire year. Opporunities are hard to miss at this university, and I feel more involved than ever.

Some students view the shift towards more challenging academics to be a bad thing, but I’ve grown over this semester to view it as a chance to better myself and build better habits. At the start of the semester I quickly realized that my previous study habits were very ineffective, and that I would need to rise to the challenge. Since then, I’ve been able to work out very effective study habits for me, and I’ve become more scheduled and efficient. I’ve been able to succeed in harder classes with less free time, as I’ve met so many people in college that I spend time with weekly. I’ve never been the best at studying, but being thrown into this high pressure scenario has helped me to iron out what works best for me, and this has helped me in more than just the academic aspects of my life.

As much as I’ve grown in college so far, this is only one semester in, and there are at least seven more to go. My classes will become exponentially harder, and in order to keep up my studying must also become exponentially better. It helps that I’m very interested in most of the classes I’m taking. I feel as though I am getting a lot out of the college experience, even as a commuter, and I hope to only keep learning more and bettering myself along this journey.

The most influential single thing that has probably happened to me in my life so far is my senior year cross country season. It was a culmination of a lot of things that were going on in my life, and it was an excellent way to end my high school career. This experience also gives me the confidence and motivation to put everything on the table in every aspect of my life, and to always put forth the greatest effort that I can.

My running career had a very promising start, where I unexpectedly qualified for the state race as a freshman, greatly improving my time each week, and it felt like I could do anything. Everyone around me heralded me as the next big thing at my high school, and it seemed like I could really be the one they were saying I was. This mental state of mine sadly didn’t last very long. My sophomore and junior years I was unable to overcome the time I had set as a freshman, and I failed to qualify for the state race. I had struggled to find reasons to keep putting in as much effort as I used to, and I was overall very flimsy in my determination and dedication. The seniors I ran with as a freshman had graduated, and I felt largely alone. This lack of motivation was also present in my academic career, and was a very bad trait of mine for the longest time. What really put me down is the fact that there was a runner who was much younger than me but much faster, and that made me feel like I had peaked as an athlete. I had begun to think the same sorts of things about my academic life, thinking that some people are just smarter than others and sometimes there is no way for me to accomplish my goals.

At the end of my junior year, I decided that I couldn’t keep behaving that way I was if I wanted to succeed in the world. I knew that I had to drastically change the way that I thought and the way I applied myself in the things I did. I began training very early in the summer, and I focused on building mental toughness. The most challenging part of the process was looking my past failures in the face and telling myself I could and needed to do better. Facing our failures is something that we can often escape in high school, as it is easy to ignore a bad grade on a tricky assignment, or ignore a C in a class that could’ve been improved with effort. Luckily for me, cross country is a sport where you very directly must face your failures and have the ability to self reflect in order to drag yourself higher to stand on the pedestal you desire. I took my aloneness, which had previously been a bad aspect of myself, and utilized it to its fullest potential, becoming someone who was very capable of putting in the work by themselves with no recognition. Strangely enough, finding strength in my aloneness allowed me to be a better teammate to those around me who I hadn’t appreciated enough.

The process I just described may seem simple on paper, but the process felt unbelievably unintuitive and challenging, and it is the kind of struggle that many people go through. Each person must deal with this sort of struggle their own way. After taking this new approach, I was improving exponentially, and I had quickly become the fastest runner on the team again, and I was placing very well in most races. Without knowing it I had become a role model for the rest of the runners, and my success was pushing everyone to do better and better. At the district race, I took first place by a few seconds, and set my school record in the 5k as 15:54, beating the previous best time by six seconds. The following week, I won the regional race by a few seconds as well, becoming the first regional champion from my high school in over four years. I went on to place 14th in the state race, blowing away all of my expectations from previous years. My team also went on to qualify for the state race, the first time my high school has qualified as a team in over four years as well, and we went on to do better than and team from my high school ever has at the state meet. It was arguably the most successful cross country my high school had seen, and I continue to take the lessons I’ve learned with me and apply them to all the aspects of my life.

There is one specific scenario that I remember from the season, and that was near the final stretch of the regional meet. I was locked in on someone who I expected to lead the group at the end, and then someone came sprinting way faster than both of us with around 800 meters left, and my only choice was to change my focus to him and ignore how I was feeling, as beating him was the only option. Through this, I eventually passed him on the last corner, and beat him by about 15 meters in the end. This paints a very good picture of the nature of life. It’s only to possible to plan things so far ahead. Unexpected challenges will continue to arise, and the only way to continue is to greet them with a smile, dive in, and enjoy the process. I continue to have new influential experiences, but I hope to keep this mindset that I’ve learned from my running career in high school with me until my body wears out. That’s the only way to truly experience life and what it has to offer.

Me running at a meet in Chilicothe:

Me bent over after a race:

Me freshman year immediately after qualifying for the state race:

Me receiving first place during the regional race award ceremony:

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